“She ’s sick ’n’ taken a turn for the wuss, last few days. Doctor Parsons doan’t reckon she can hold out much longer. ’Tis the drink—she’m soaked in it, like a sponge.”
“I’ll come,” said Hicks, and half an hour later he approached his aunt’s dwelling and entered it.
Mrs. Lezzard was now sunk into a condition of chronic crapulence which could only end in one way. Her husband had been ordered again and again to keep all liquor from her, but, truth to tell, he made no very sustained effort to do so. The old man was sufficiently oppressed by his own physical troubles, and as the only happiness earth now held for him must depend on the departure of his wife, he watched her drinking herself to death without concern and even smiled in secret at the possibility of some happy, quiet, and affluent years when she was gone.
Mrs. Lezzard lay on the sofa in her parlour, and a great peony-coloured face with coal-black eyes in it greeted Clement. She gave him her hand and bid her husband be gone. Then, when Gaffer had vanished, his wife turned to her nephew.
“I’ve sent for you, Clem Hicks, for more reasons than wan. I be gwaine down the hill fast, along o’ marryin’ this cursed mommet[12] of a man, Lezzard. He lied about his money—him a pauper all the time; and now he waits and watches me o’ nights, when he thinks I’m drunk or dreamin’ an’ I ban’t neither. He watches, wi’ his auld, mangy poll shakin’, an’ the night-lamp flingin’ the black shadow of un ’gainst the bed curtain an’ shawin’ wheer his wan front tooth sticks up like a yellow stone in a charred field. Blast un to hell! He’m waitin’ for my money, an’ I’ve told un he’s to have it. But ’twas only to make the sting bite deeper when the time comes. Not a penny—not a farthing—him or any of ’em.”
“Don’t get angry with him. He’s not worth it. Tell me if I can help you and how. You’ll be up and about again soon, I hope.” “Never. Not me. Doctor Parsons be to blame. I hate that man. He knawed it was weakness of heart that called for drink after Coonistock died; an’ he let me go on an’ on—just to gain his own dark ends. You’ll see, you’ll see. But that reminds me. Of all my relations you an’ your mother’s all I care for; because you’m of my awn blood an’ you’ve let me bide, an’ haven’t been allus watchin’ an’ waitin’ an’ divin’ me to the bottle. An’ the man I was fule enough to take in his dotage be worst of all.”
“Forget about these things. Anger’s bad for you.”
“Forget! Well, so I will forget, when I ve told ’e. I had the young man what does my business, since old Ford died, awver here last week, an’ what there is will be yourn—every stiver yourn. Not the business, of course; that was sold when Coonistock died; but what I could leave I have. You expected nothin,’ an’ by God! you shall have all!”
She saw his face and hastened to lessen the force of the announcement in some degree.
“Ban’t much, mind, far less than you might think for—far less. Theer’s things I was driven to do—a lone woman wi’out a soul to care. An’ wan was—but you’ll hear in gude time, you’ll hear. It concerns Doctor Parsons.”